


ships that sail in the night

by selinawrites



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coronavirus, Doctor John, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Medical Procedures, Parenthood, Pining, Post-The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selinawrites/pseuds/selinawrites
Summary: There’s a virus, a detective, and a doctor.Or, the one where John is needed in the hospital and Sherlock is left to his own devices whilst in quarantine.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 151





	1. like soldiers off to war

**Author's Note:**

> i've been in the sherlock fandom for 4 years now, and it took a global pandemic for me to post my first fanfiction lol  
> sherlock fanfic in particular i've always been a perfectionist when writing - i always find myself quite particular when it comes to writing these characters. 
> 
> the world has been bleak lately, but i hope this brightens your day a little.

Sherlock has wheeled out the television and was sitting with his legs drawn up at his seat when John gets home. 

“Has Rosie eaten?” John asks, as he takes off his coat and sets down his grocery bags.

“Peas.” Sherlock says, never taking his eyes off of the television. He regards the babbling toddler with a quiet look. 

John raised his eyebrows. “Just peas?” He asked quietly. “She has to have either some meat or dairy with that too.”

Sherlock’s face scrunched up. “Why?” He asked with a shrug, the light of the television reflecting off of him. “I had just peas today and was able to function just fine.”

John scratched his head. “Yeah because you’re… nevermind.” He replied, standing beside Sherlock. “You never wheel out the telly unless you’re bored out of your mind.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened and he looked at John. “Yes well I went to the morgue to pick up some intestines and they wouldn’t let me in so I’ve had nothing to do all day.” 

“Well, that makes sense.”

“Does it?” He says curtly. “I usually rely on Molly to get me in, but she told me that it wasn’t allowed.”

“There’s a pandemic going on, so I guess they wouldn’t want civilians to catch anything from being around possibly infection people.”

Sherlock exhales and looks up at John. “Pandemic?” He said quickly, eyes blinking. “I’ve told you multiple times, I don’t care if the sun goes around the moon or if the prime minister is a knob, it isn’t  _ important.”  _

“You will start caring once you learn that this’ll affect your business,” John says, slightly bemused that Sherlock hadn’t heard anything about the outbreak affecting all walks of life.

He takes the remote out of Sherlock’s hand and changes the channel to the news where the broadcaster was talking very gravely about the situation. Sherlock stayed quiet, absorbing the information into his brain.

John left him and went to prepare dinner. By the time the table was laid, Sherlock turned off the television and put John’s chair back in its place.

“There’s a pandemic,” Sherlock says quietly.

“Quite.” John nods, through bites of pasta. Sherlock sits across from him, picking at his food without really touching it. “I’m surprised you hadn’t heard.”   


Sherlock shrugged. “Didn’t seem important.”

“People are gonna die from it,” John replied.

“Oh, people die all the time.” 

John gives Sherlock a very pointed glare. Sherlock sighs. “Well, isn’t that  _ too bad.” _ He tries once more, voice overtly sweet. 

* * *

John comes back from the clinic to see Sherlock plucking his violin while Mycroft is inspecting their mantle. Rosie is on the couch scribbling at an old case file. 

“Ah, John!” Mycroft exclaimed. “Please enlighten my brother dear on what’s going on outside his head for once.”

John raised his hands in surrender. “I’ve tried already.”

Mycroft hands Sherlock a manila folder. Sherlock takes it and flicks through the pages. He looks at Sherlock wordlessly before passing John.

“I hear you’ve taken up a permanent position in the emergency room,” Mycroft said.

John nodded. “Well, Sherlock isn’t making any money as clients aren’t coming in, and I’m only in there until the crisis passes.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft says earnestly, the most genuine thing that John thinks he has ever heard Mycroft says. “It’s not easy work being a doctor right now.” He says, at last walking past John and exiting.

John sits down in his chair and looks at Sherlock, who was vehemently rifling through the pages that Mycroft handed him. “What’s that?” John asked.

“Apparently the prime minister is ill. That makes Mycroft the head of state.” He says with a snort. “He gave me the numbers on infection, death, number of masks and ventilators, and other things.”

“Why?”   


“Dunno,” Sherlock says with a sigh, standing up and facing the window. The streets were deathly quiet. “I’m no politician.”

“Do you think it’s because Mycroft wanted you to know these things, just because?” John asked. Sherlock didn’t reply.

“Sherlock.” John says definitively, commanding Sherlock’s attention. Sherlock turns around and looks at John. In the setting sun, light rays fall on John’s face. Sherlock raises an eyebrow. 

“They’re transferring me to one of the major trauma centres starting next week.”

Sherlock takes a step closer to John. “You can’t go.” He says quietly, yet firmly. 

“I’m a doctor. I took an oath.” John said with a shrug. “And besides, I’ve been to war.”

"Would you go to war again?" Sherlock asked gallantly. "Would you line up and be a soldier and go back into the battlefield?"

John sighed. "I'm a doctor. I have to go."

“You’re more than that now,” Sherlock replied, expression inscrutable. “You’re a father.” He said, tilting his head over to Rosie.

“You can take care of her,” John said with a shrug.

Sherlock stayed quiet and furrowed his brow. He looked like he had a problem to solve. “Doctors are dying by the dozen.” He said incredulously. 

“Not the first time my life has been in danger.” John countered. Despite himself, Sherlock let out a chuckle. 

John stood up and looked at Sherlock. “Hey.” He reassured, looking at Sherlock in the eye. “I’ll still be home every night.” He said quietly.

“It’s highly infectious and you might not even know you have it until two weeks later,” Sherlock said after a long silence.

John smiled. “I see you haven’t deleted that information yet.” He replied, the two of them chuckling tensely.


	2. in the still and quiet sunlight

Sherlock hadn’t been able to sleep all night, mind racing with all the different scenarios that could take place once John got to the hospital.

Scenario One: John goes to the hospital, treats all the patients, and goes home at odd hours every night. He doesn’t get sick, and he lives to tell the story to Rosie when she writes her report on it for history class.

This is the best situation, the one where there’s a future to dream about, the one where there are possibilities and hope. It’s the one where John does right by his country and still gets to bed every night. Sherlock likes this idea because it means that the world gets to live with John Watson in it a little while longer. 

Scenario Two: John goes to the hospital and by some impossible fluke, he catches this deadly virus that can walk through walls. He’s incredibly healthy and in peak physical condition. It isn’t likely that he’d die from it, but Sherlock wouldn’t put his bets against it.

Sherlock doesn’t want to think about this one, the one where he has to keel over John’s bedside, sit in the creaky hospital chairs like John did when he got shot. And then there was the question of Rosie if it ever came down to life and death…

Scenario Three: Sherlock sees it in John’s eyes, the quiet way more and more of John’s heart hollows out when he looks at a person he can’t save. That’s what makes John so infinitely  _ good,  _ that human guilt that Sherlock never seems to have enough of. If John said the word, Sherlock would put in a word with Mycroft and have John quietly taken out of the payrolls. He could lock himself in at Baker Street, the three of them living out the rest of quarantine eating crisps and watching crap telly.

Oh, Sherlock knows it’s selfish. He knows he just wants John home to take care of the babbling baby and he wants John safe because this time it isn’t him throwing John into the jaws of death. He knows that John has a duty to his patients, a horrible, unspeakable, deadly oath that calls at the worst of times.

He stays up all night examining the numbers that Mycroft had sent Sherlock, but in the end, he cannot rule out one scenario or make another more likely. He doesn’t have all the numbers, and that’s what infuriates him - no one has all the numbers. But if someone gave him the statistics, laid out for him like a math problem, he could come up with an idea to save John Watson from going into the heat of battle.

He knows it’s selfish to want John for himself. But John was always better with Rosie, better at doing chores and keeping them fed and doing all the menial things that Sherlock never had the patience of doing.

He wants John back at Baker street for another reason, an incredibly selfish, awful reason. It’s a reason his heart isn’t quite ready to confront yet.

* * *

There’s movement in the flat at five in the morning, the sound of a kettle whistling, slippers shuffling over creaky hardwood floors. Sherlock springs up out of bed, donning a day-old dressing gown. 

He opens the bedroom door and walks into the kitchen, where John is getting ready for the day ahead. 

“Into battle?” Sherlock asks timidly. John turns around and smiles at him. He hands Sherlock a cup of tea. Sherlock nods at John. He always knew when Sherlock couldn’t sleep at night. 

“I won’t be home until late. Maybe into tomorrow morning.”

“As expected,” Sherlock said simply, picking lint off of his shoulder. He tried his very best not to look at John because he looked like the kind of man who was going into battle.

A sharp silence fills the air as John clears his throat. “Right then. I’ll be off.”

Sherlock nods his head. On John’s way out, just one foot down a step, Sherlock calls after him. “John?” Sherlock exclaims.

“Yeah?” He says, turning his back and locking eyes with Sherlock.

“Be safe.” He says quietly.

John swallows hard and nods. With little fanfare, he walks down the staircase and opens the door. Sherlock takes a deep breath, with him in the silence that stretches out into eternity.

He shakes the lethargy out of his veins and hops into the shower, cold droplets of water running down his limbs. He washes systematically, rinsing the sudsy shampoo out of his hair before cleansing his face. By the time he steps out of the shower, daylight starts to break.

There’s sunlight streaming through the windows and the birds begin to chirp. Sherlock stays still for a moment, the flat looking warm and soft and muted. The crime scene photos strung up blend into the warm sludge of colour on their walls. The sunlight falls on their hardwood floors, making everything a nice shade of golden. And Sherlock stands there, soft hair and socked feet with a pensive smile dancing on the corners of his lips.

He never gets to see his home like this - like an actual home rather than just the medium he uses to solve crimes from. He thinks back to the place he lived in before he met John, a putrid apartment one step away from practically being a skip. Baker Street had become a home to him, with stories lining the shelves of the walls and memories flooding through the floorboards. 

Everything is quiet, with the outdoor noise at a very minimum with no commuters and drivers on the road and John not puttering around the flat, pots and pans tinkling quietly. Sherlock is aware he’s the source of most noise in the flat, though. Playing a violin sonata or talking loudly to himself, or shooting holes in the walls. (Though he had only ever done that once.) But with no clients, no crimes to solve, there’s nothing left for Sherlock to do.

He hears a baby wail.

Well, almost nothing left for him to do.

He turns on the kettle and puts in a slice of toast. Since John moved back, he has forced himself to ingest a slice of toast every morning, because he can’t bear to see John’s morose expression every time Sherlock looks skinnier-than-not.

While the bread toasts and the water boils, Sherlock ascends the creaky staircase and takes the baby Watson out of her crib.

“Good morning Miss Watson,” Sherlock said with a grin, taking the year-old baby into his hands and rocking her as they went into the living room. He took out a fresh diaper from a basket under their sofa and changed her diaper, as he had a thousand times before.

This was their routine in Baker street: John and Sherlock would wake up an hour after dawn, one of them making the other breakfast while the other rouses Rosie and changes her diaper. They give her a bottle and some baby food, the three of them eating in companionable silence. Their household was constantly full of noise and chatter, and so breakfast was the only time that there was total silence, before the rest of the world had woken up.

For until John is working night to night, this routine belongs to Sherlock and Rosie alone. 

He sets Rosie up in her high chair, pushing aside John’s seat so the two of them were sitting face to face. He got his toast and made his coffee, reading the newspaper while Rosie played with her toys.

Sherlock felt his heart kick.

He knew that he would never have a biological child of his own. He didn’t know how he felt about children - his hypothetical children. He knew that the world was cold and cruel and he never felt like bringing life into it, not when he knew that the world was a dangerous place. 

And well, from a biological standpoint, if he had sex with someone because he wanted to, it wouldn’t create a child. 

He had pretty much given up on the idea of children by the time John Watson had rolled into his life. He had given up on many things, growing old for one.

But John makes him want to think about his future, to grow old and move into the Holmes’ ancestral home in Sussex, raising bees and picking at his graying hair.

And John gave him Rosie, this brilliant, bumbling baby who makes Sherlock smile despite himself. No one, not even John, can make Sherlock smile as quick as Rosie does. 

By the time he has finished his toast and his coffee has gone cold, he takes Rosie out of her high chair and lets her roam around the flat. Long ago he had taken dangerous objects off of 

baby-height. All the jars and jugs of body parts were safely stored in shelves so high even he needed a little stool to reach them. 

He gets to play the violin for hours, stopping only to give Rosie a toy out of her grasp or a bottle refill or helping her crawl across an expanse of the carpet more treacherous than Washington crossing the Delaware. 

It’s suddenly a stagnant midday, and Sherlock is flopped on the couch with his fingers steepled, thinking about the universe. It’s harder to get lost in his own mind these days, especially when it’s just him and Rosie. There’s always a sheer terror that creeps down his spine, the instinct to care for Rosie overriding everything.

And so, he folds up blankets and puts away dishes, he even tidies the other half of the dining table that was hardly ever used. He goes into his bedroom and folds the laundry. He opens the windows and allows time to pass him by. He fights every urge not to text John. He is incredibly, inescapably bored, but he knows bothering John prevents him from getting important things done.

It’s sunset, and Sherlock and Rosie are on the floor playing blocks. It consists mostly of Sherlock trying to see how high he can stack the blocks before Rosie topples the tower over with her tiny pink hands.

Rosie giggles. And in the silence of the day, Sherlock quirks a smile too.

“Da da,” Rosie says loudly, giggling and smiling with all of her facial muscles. 

Sherlock freezes. From the best of his knowledge (and really, his knowledge was the best) Rosie had never said anything at all. A stiff lump forms in his throat, feeling for a moment that he had stolen the moment from John, her actual father.

He hates the way his mind races, over and over until he can’t find a logical explanation other than the truth.

And the truth is plain and simple: through time and love and soiled nappies, Sherlock had become just as much of a father to Rosie as John is.


	3. collision courses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i notice that a lot of johnlock fics are written from john's perspective which i can understand - it is considerably harder to write a high functioning sociopath rather than john. but i decided to give a crack at it anyways

When John gets home in the dead of the evening, Sherlock is sitting in his chair with a glass of wine in the silence, the only thing filling the air was the crackle of the fireplace.

Sherlock swivels his head to look at John, reading him up and down.

His mind was tired, but on edge from the boredom of the day. He looked at the indentations around John’s upper mouth area and just below his nose - markings of wearing one - no, two - masks, one n95 mask and one surgical mask, for ten hours without taking it off. The rest was plain as day, he was in the ICU in the morning, infectious disease ward in the afternoon, and then the emergency room at night. There was no use reading into the other little things because they all sent the same message - John was tired.

“John,” Sherlock said quietly.

John looked at Sherlock wordlessly and smiled. “I’m exhausted.” He exclaimed at long last.

Sherlock nodded his head. He felt like he should say it now,  _ oh, by the way, your biological daughter has mistaken me for her father, completely sorry about that, won’t happen again.  _ The words, however, stuck in his mouth, heavy and choking until he could barely breathe.

“As you should be.” Sherlock said with a nod of his head. 

“Funny thing is, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.” He said, voice raspy.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sherlock asked, even if he knew the answer already.

“No.”

Sherlock nodded in understanding. “Care to join me?” He said, lifting his glass of wine and beckoning back to their fireplace.

“Just for an hour. If I go to bed by three, I’ll still get three hours of sleep.”

“Right you are.” Sherlock says, quirking a smile. “After you shower, I hope?”   


“Of course.” John said earnestly.

One fifteen minute long shower later, John’s hair was damp and he was wearing his warmest dressing gown. Sherlock was at the window playing a  [ song ](https://youtu.be/p9OJ454DA5o?t=165) that John hadn’t heard before.

Sherlock had different pieces for his different moods. After all the years of knowing and living with him, John was able to distinguish them. Bach and Mozart was for thinking. He composed his own music when he was bored. He could play the odd traditional song, God Save the Queen, Auld Lang Syne. He only ever played those if he was trying to be cheeky. 

But this song, this one was different. It didn’t sound like anything Sherlock had ever written. He had his own style, a signature vibrato that carried its way through every composition. This song was light. If John knew better, it almost sounded hopeful.

John stood there, at the edge of the hallway, palm pressed up against the doorframe. He didn’t want to disturb Sherlock, break him out of a trance he so rarely fell into these days. God knows if he would ever be able to hear this song again, under these circumstances, in this light. 

And as quick as it started, Sherlock stopped playing and the world fell silent once more.

“That was lovely.” John said, breaking the silence and taking a step forward. “You wrote it?”

Sherlock shook his head. “Kishi Bashi.” He said with a lopsided smile.

John walked over the expanse of the living room and sat in his chair, wine glass already poured. He smiled and looked over at Sherlock who had just put his violin away and was joining him in his own chair, legs crossed, fingers steepled.

“Thinking?” John asked.

Sherlock shook his head. “Nothing very important.”

John nods, crackling fireplaces and an absence of city noises swelling in the space between them. “Rosie?” He then asked.

There was a smile that tugged at the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. “Out like a light.” He said fondly. “If you don’t mind, I moved her crib to my room. Just for the time being. I feel like I can’t hear her cry if she’s shut up in your room upstairs.”

John nodded. Of course Sherlock did that. There was never a detail he missed. “That’s… good.” He enthused.

Sherlock looked at John. It was now or never, he supposed. “John,” He started, a note of uncertainty wavering in his voice. He didn’t like the unfamiliar taste of apprehension, a feeling he was so little accustomed to. He was always confident in his words, his vocabulary sharper than any sword he wielded. But now, he felt like he was picking through rows of words just trying to find the perfect one to say.

John swallowed down a sip of wine. “Yeah?”

“Rosie called me her father today.”

John froze in place. Sherlock squinted hard, trying to read the expression that was slowly forming, but none could come to mind. He knew that if this was any person, any random person, he would be about to find about ten possible expressions on John’s face. But there was a slight mishap that took place. 

He was right: caring is a defect found on the losing side. And so, if losing is what it took to care for his family of ill-fitting puzzle pieces, well, it isn’t all that bad to lose after all.

“She called you her.. Father?” John said quietly, blinking.

Sherlock nodded. “Well, actually she said  _ da da,  _ but I presume the subtext is the same.”

“Those were her first words,” John replied.

Sherlock’s mouth flattened into a wan smile. “I also presumed.”

John didn’t say anything for a long while.

“Look, John, I understand that I am Rosie’s godfather and I will do my best to bring her up to the best of my capacity but at the end of the day you are her biological father and nothing can compare to the bond of a child to their parent and I am in no way-”

John raised his hand slowly. “Can you shut up for just one second?” He asked. Sherlock swallowed hard and obliged.

John didn’t say anything for a long while after that.

“John,” Sherlock said, a twinge of desperation seeping into his words. He hated how pathetic it made him sound, but he couldn’t bear to think of that at the current moment. “Please.”   


John looked down at the grown and blinked. “You’re a bloody idiot.” He said with a dissonant chuckle. It was Sherlock who was then rendered speechless.

“Excuse me?”

“ _ Godfather?”  _ John exclaimed. “C’mon Sherlock.” He said, shaking his head with a smile. “You’re Rosie’s father as much as I am. You know that.”

Sherlock blinked. “Yes but... “ He couldn’t find the right words to say. All the words he was dreaming up in his head fit in the sentence in strange, oblong ways. “I’m not her father. Not really, anyways.”

John let out another chuckle. “Well, I didn’t give birth to her either. So I guess we’re even.”

That made Sherlock smile. It was the type of smile that John liked, soft and gentle as if Sherlock was not the most reckless man he had ever known. 

“You know what I mean.” Sherlock replied.

“Yes, I do know what you mean. And you’re wrong.”

Sherlock smiled. “Won’t happen again.”

“God, I hope not. One day without a case and you’re already getting things wrong?” He clucked his lips and shook his head. They shared a laugh.

After a moment, John exhaled. “Oh, Mary.” He said quietly.

Sherlock nodded. Mary occupied a strange place in his mind. While Mycroft’s place in the mind palace was out in the gutters, and John had a whole wing to himself, and Lestrade had a room, and Mrs. Hudson had a suite, he never quite knew where to place Mary. She never had enough to occupy a room, but she was just not another file in his cabinets. Her memory was strung up in the foyer, like a framed Rembrandt, her urn on the top of the mantle. Mary never occupied rooms, or houses, or buildings. She lived in objects, in the mundane.

Perhaps it was because after all this time he wasn’t sure what she meant to him. She hurt him, but more importantly, she hurt John. She was not a good person, but at the end of the day she was just that. She was a person. And how could Sherlock fault her for that?

“Do you miss her?” Sherlock asked. They never did this. Feelings. But they also never used to have a baby in the flat. So.

John took a steep intake of air. “Well, she’s the mother of my child.”

“Answering by omission never looks good on you, John.”

John smiled bitterly and took another sip of wine. Sherlock did the same. “I suppose it’s like missing a memory, isn’t it? Like looking back to a summer when you were a kid and missing the idea of it.”

“So you don’t miss her? Just her memory?”

“You make me sound like a cynic when you say it like that.”

Sherlock smirks. “Am I wrong?”

“No… just not correct.” John supplied. “I don’t think we were right for each other, in the end. I think it might have always ended like that. Not in her death, but… like this. Me. Here. Baker street. Crime-solving. You know. Fire and flame.”   
  


There was something warm in John’s voice, something sweet and earthy that Sherlock was tempted to venture forth and explore. John looked to the clock. ‘Better get to bed.” He said quietly, standing up from his chair. Sherlock did the same. They stopped in their tracks where the staircase began and the hallway branched off.

“John,” Sherlock said, grabbing hold of John’s wrist instinctively. To his surprise, John didn’t let go. 

John looked over at Sherlock. His quiet, thoughtful face, the way his pupils were constantly darting back and forth. They were mere inches away from each other and John could smell the wine on his lips. Neither of them was inebriated enough to be drunk, but just enough to have reality blurred at the edges.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said quietly. It was words he never said enough, words that meant the world.

John nodded. “Of course.” He replied, looking up at Sherlock’s eyes. In the misshapen moonlight, his eyes were grey, the colour of sludge once the snow melts, the grey of the air on a cold winter’s night. His hair was perfect, not a flaw to be found. Not messy and tangled after a night on the run, but rather from an afternoon of doing quite literally nothing.

Sherlock wanted to know what was going on inside of John’s brain. He was no mind reader, just a good observer. And right now, he observes that John Watson is killing everything he is trying to think of. 

It’s like a burning candle taking up all the oxygen in the room. John does the same thing. He goes into Sherlock’s personal space and takes up all the space in his mind allocated for thinking and rational deduction. It’s what makes John such a formidable partner. John keeps him focused on the task at hand. 

But now that the task at hand is John himself, he doesn’t know what do to. All he knows is that he wants to reach out and crack open John’s brain, read the thoughts that form in the ridges of his brain. He wants to know John intimately, in every colour, in every time, in every instance possible.

If Sherlock was an ordinary person, the thought might scare him. If it was a regular day with a case on the horizon, he might be petrified, too. But Sherlock had gone twenty four hours without danger, and so he looks at John, feels a kick in his heart, and accepts it like stepping into oblivion.

He draws his hand back and looks at John with a smile. “Goodnight.” He says earnestly.

John blinks quickly and clears his throat. “Goodnight.” He says, going up the creaky stairs as Sherlock walks down their hallway. The lightbulb was flickery - he’d have to get that changed as soon as he could.

He opens the door to his room and peers out the window, at the stillness of it all. “Fire and flame,” Sherlock whispers, looking down at the floor with a nod of his head.


	4. the science of comfort

An unprecedented thing: with less pollution of every sort, birds have come back to central London.

Sherlock hears them as the sun breaks over the clouds, as John putters around the flat. Sherlock got out of bed, throwing on his navy dressing gown and stepping into the kitchen. John looked worse for wear, but no different compared to how he looked after working a long case. Sherlock smiled. John handed him a cup of tea. 

Sherlock marvelled at that, how John was the one in the high-stress job and yet he was the one who still made him tea every morning.

It’s two weeks now since John’s first shift at the hospital, and he’s in for relief any time soon. They’re relieving him of duty as some new virus specialists from China were coming in to alleviate the workload. It still meant that John had to go to the hospital every day, but not the gruelling shifts that he had done so far. He told Sherlock that he expected the shifts to ease up by next week.

Their routine for the past few days fell in a strange sort of rhythm. Sherlock woke when John woke because he never got much sleep anyway. They ate a quick breakfast before John left, and it was Sherlock and Rosie, playing the piano (Sherlock), soiling their pants (Rosie), eating applesauce (both of them).

The evenings were for Sherlock and John. There were nights where John was too tired to do much but stare at the fireplace and drink their wine in silence. Sherlock didn’t mind this in the slightest, as their evenings were usually silent and full of thoughts the other wasn’t privy to knowing.

Sherlock liked this side of John, the quiet and introspective one. He spent John’s mile-long silences trying to decipher the hammering in his heart, the riotous roar that sparked up in his flatmate’s vicinity. He traces the lines of John’s body as they sloped over the armchair. He searches John’s eyes for a key into his mind. Because where there is John Watson, there is Sherlock Holmes, itching to deduce something of his heart through John’s own.

He decided this: John Watson was a brave, selfless man. He was kind and honourable and these are all good things that Sherlock knew from the first glance.

But there is one other thing, one thing that John keeps proving. He is someone who can forgive. He forgives Sherlock for drugging his coffee. He forgives Sherlock for leaving thumbs in the fridge. And of course, he forgives Sherlock for faking his death, for leaving him lost at sea for two long years.

And so Sherlock deduces this. It’s simple, really. It’s a process of elimination.

If John can forgive Sherlock for druggings and body parts in food containers and fake deaths, he can forgive Sherlock for kissing him.

Because it would not be the end of the world if Sherlock kisses John. It is just a simple deduction.

The fire is warm and the air is ripe with something unforsaken by the time John gets to the living room. Sherlock is facing the window again and playing the violin. He must have seen John arrive, and yet he keeps his back turned. Sherlock was in his finest exactly like this. Not overconfident or high on adrenaline when solving a case, not fake and dripping with insincerity when he talked to other people, but rather yet when he was lost in his own mind and allowed his bow and violin to take over. 

John stays still at the entrance because once more Sherlock was playing a [ song](https://youtu.be/bb9QJvQvnGs?t=88) that John has no recollection of hearing. It’s mournful, really. It’s the kind of song that would be played at funerals if there wasn’t just the slightest hint of hope. John was always on his feet, always impressed with the wide variety of skills that Sherlock had. He played the violin so deftly and so eloquently that it sounded almost like a completely different instrument altogether. He could have been a touring violinist, the lead in orchestras, playing at the Sydney opera house. He could play for diplomats in palaces, millionaires at parties. He could get rich and famous from his mastery of the piano alone.

But instead, he chooses to keep his audience of one person, a tired old doctor in a stuffy flat in the middle of London. Sherlock loathes to play the violin in front of a large audience, and perhaps, John thinks, _perhaps Sherlock only plays for John because John is the only person in an audience that matters to him._ He can play anywhere in the world, but he chooses to play in their home with bad reception and creaky floors. He chose this home, the home with shelves that always need dusting and carpets that always need vacuuming. It's a home, a home that was littered with baby toys and gruesome crime scene photos and always smelled like the candles Mrs Hudson gets from Camden Market. 

Sherlock finishes the song with a flourish. He turns from the window and smiles at John. he hesitates for a moment and then changes the [ song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg6biic0wBw). It’s light and upbeat, the kind of song that Sherlock would have called an insult to classical music once upon a time. The thought of such a far-away memory makes John smile. 

John sways in time with the music. What he really wanted to do was dance _with_ Sherlock, but he could hardly do that as Sherlock was still playing the violin. Instead, he allowed himself to close his eyes and feel the music in his bones, feel the stresses of the day escape as he entered the only house he ever really did consider home. He let the worries of the day leave his mind, instead opting for the melodic notes of the violin to carry him across the apartment floor.

John knows he loves Sherlock, this much is true.

He knows he loves Sherlock the same way the he knows the sun will rise every morning, the same way he knows his wife is dead, the same way he knows Sherlock will be a great father. He knows he loves Sherlock not from the keen, rational part of his mind but rather the wild and sometimes loathsome thing that is his heart. 

They take it in motions. There is always a case, something more pressing than the utter need to sit down and discuss their relationship. But there was nothing to discuss. There would always be Sherlock with his snide remarks, always John with more than a friendship, with meaningful hugs, with lying in his lap as he tries to think of something brilliant. For John, he let it all slide. He let Sherlock be the conductor of their relationship because for John it was always just a matter of time.

The song ends, and they share a smile rife with meaning that only they understood.

* * *

The next day he comes back from his shift at the hospital, John’s eyes are red around the edges. His face is puffy and his breathing is laboured. It doesn’t take a genius to realize this - that John had been crying. Sherlock had come to this deduction early. It was a high-stress job, and there were bound to be lapses in John's resolve. Simple, really. A side effect of working in such a tense job.

And yet as Sherlock knows these things, he still gets to his feet and meets John halfway. John had been kidnapped and thrown in a bonfire. He had bombs strapped to his chest and snipers pointed at him, so Sherlock absolves himself of guilt over worrying every now and again.

“Are you hurt?” Sherlock said quietly, rushing over and examining John’s limbs. There’s a dread that fills him, right then and there, but it’s something he doesn’t want to spend too long on.

John sighs. “Just the regular stuff.”

Sherlock stayed quiet, wordlessly challenging John to rise to the bait.

“There was a patient we had. Young. She was a schoolteacher. Pneumonia snuck up on her in the night. Dead before dawn.”

Sherlock nodded. He tried not to be snippy and selfish these days, but there was a single dissonant thought that popped up in his mind. John comes across mangled bodies and bashed in heads every day of the week. He can’t possibly think of a reason why John cares about this woman in particular.

And as if reading his mind, John looks squarely in Sherlock’s eyes. “It’s worse than war. The bodies just keep piling up.”

“At least in war, you knew what you were expecting. It was shit, of course, but they had it coming. A young man with family back home. But these are grandparents. Office workers. People who didn’t sign up for danger - just ones who had the misfortune of having it.”

Sherlock breached the space between them and held John in his arms. Sherlock held tightly, clung to him like a lifeline. John smelled like hospital disinfectant and his cologne, and that warm, earthy smell that was his own. 

Sherlock was a man of science. He knew that to be comfortable you had to have the right environment. That was why his bedroom had dim lighting, goose down blankets, and a nice, firm mattress. It was why his sitting chair didn’t have springs or scratchy fabric. Comfort, too, was a science.

But Sherlock does not understand this: he does not understand how he could hug John, a stiff mass of blood and bone in the middle of their sitting room, where they have experienced danger and terror and all the things that would make his blood boil. It did not make sense to find all the comfort in the world just steps away from where Jim Moriarty once sat. 

John sniffed after a while. “I could be infected, you know.”

“I will go down crashing with you, then,” Sherlock said, baritone deep in John’s ears.

John shook his head and pulled away. “Rosie could get infected. If we start touching all sorts of things without sanitizing.”

Sherlock bit his lip. “Quite right.” He said with a nod.

And so one shower for John and one change of clothes for Sherlock later, the two of them were standing at their mantle, listening to the quiet roads.

“I was wrong, you know,” Sherlock said quietly.

“About what?”

“About caring.” He said, looking over to John’s face. John’s face was soft. It had a gentle smile that curled at the edges. His hair was rumpled, his body sway closer to Sherlock’s own than necessary.

“Hm?”

“I said that caring was a defect found in the losing side.” 

John nodded his head. “You did say that, didn’t you? With the whole Woman business.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together and nodded in assent. “I did. But I was wrong.”

“What makes you say that?”

“When you care for someone, you become biased. You see things through a different lens, willing to overlook irregularities or their faults. You don’t see things in a fair and objective way. You make up your own facts about the case and draw conclusions.”

“You’re still not making any sense, Sherlock.”

Sherlock clucked his tongue. “Oh, let me finish.”

John nodded his head and let Sherlock continue. 

“John, you are not brilliant or smart or able to form your own deductions.”

John let out a snort of air. “Cheers, mate.”

Sherlock gave John a look. “But despite that… I care about you.”

“Oh, I would hope so.” John said with a chuckle. Despite himself, Sherlock chuckles too.

“No. I became biased to you. I am willing to overlook your faults. I lost the ability to look at you objectively. I thought that was a side effect of losing. But it is a trade off. Because I gained a small family, didn’t I?”

John hummed. “Yes, I suppose you did.”

“She’s my daughter, John.” Sherlock said quietly, full of awe and parental wonder. “And you…” Sherlock shook his head. “Well, you’re a conductor of light.”

He reached out for John’s hand and held it.

“Sherlock…” John began, looking up into his infinite, expansive eyes.

Sherlock smiled, and he’s made of magic. There’s a current that runs through them, the very same camaraderie that brought them together. But there’s something more, the fondness for shared history, the binding of two souls.

“No John, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Sherlock said with a smile, cupping John’s face in his hands. All those years of running after criminals and running to the ends of the world. All those years of marriages gone astray and fake deaths and half-truths. All those years, all that history, it led them here.

Sherlock leaned down to kiss John.

When their lips met, soft and hesitant but also warm and curious, it was all the things Sherlock tried to ignore about the world. It was art and astronomy and sculptures and music. It was joy and dancing and fiction novels and movies. It was all the things in the world that Sherlock had decided to delete in favour of bashed-in heads and bleeding tongues and eyeballs in the fridge.

Sherlock Holmes kissing John Watson was the single most natural thing in the world, just two people in one place, at the right time, in all the right circumstances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before diving into writing a 50k word story, i like to test the waters by writing a short fic first. this helps me get a read of the characters and adjust to their personalities.
> 
> i'm aware this story isn't the greatest, but i had good fun writing it. i hope you had good fun reading it, too.


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